


The Past That Built Me

by ThatPunkJay



Category: Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Simulator
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Gender Dysphoria, Hurt/Comfort, Late Night Conversations, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:35:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28384110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatPunkJay/pseuds/ThatPunkJay
Summary: Damien and Mary chat about the past while trying to fix the animal shelter computer. I just really wanted to write about the goth subculture and gender. This fic is projecty as hell but hey, maybe some people need that right now.
Relationships: Damien Bloodmarch & Mary Christiansen
Comments: 1
Kudos: 22





	The Past That Built Me

Did Mary actually need to be at the dog shelter half an hour after closing? No

Should the dog shelter be paying an actual IT tech instead of asking if Dames could stay ‘just ten minutes to look at a small problem’? Absolutely. 

Was the CEO a cheapskate and was Dames a bleeding heart? Yes and yes. 

So naturally, Mary hung around the shelter, gossiping and drinking with a 10-week old puppy snoozing in her lap while Damien scrubbed 5 months of Malware, Spyware, and whatever else the 62-year-old volunteer Pam had downloaded. Someone had to make sure Damien left at a reasonable hour. 

“Hey, Dames?” Mary called

“Yes?” he called back from the cramped computer desk. 

“It occurs to me, I’ve known you since you were ten. You’ve always been kinda goth. How did you get into it.” she asked. 

Damien smiled to himself, clicking through options on the computer. “Imagine a deeply uncomfortable, deeply sad child. Just having had the concept of othering explained to him, brutally, by his peers. So he goes to the more primitive internet of the time and sees that weird people grow up to have pretty long hair, and glamorous weird makeup and make weird art and write big important thoughts about society. How could I not be enamored.” 

Mary mulls over his answer for a moment. As though she's tasting it along with the swigs from her flask. “So that's it, you knew you wouldn’t fit in so you found somewhere better?” 

“I suppose that's how it started.” Damien clicked through a few more screens, then turned his chair to Mary. “What spurred this line of thinking.” 

“Oh, you know.” Mary took a swig of her drink. “Kids are getting older, Joseph’s great, well, doing better. We’re both better than our parents were but I always worry. . . “ 

“That Joseph might not be able to handle it if the kids stray too far from that path that's done so much for him.” Damien finished the thought. 

“Exactly.” Mary fiddled with the fur of the puppy still in her lap. 

Damien looked reflective. “As I got older goth became two things to me. First, it became like armor, mistreatment and exclusion became caution and my own disinterest. Secondly It became an intellectual haven, the goth subculture introduced me to so many new ideas on art, philosophy, fashion, history and even gender.” 

Mary looked over at Damien curiously. Despite knowing him most of his life they never talked about their shared childhood, too much hurt there. 

“I always kinda wondered if those friends of yours were how you figured it out.” Mary mused. 

“Which friends, I was so popular in school.” Damien rolled his eyes, smirking slightly. 

“We get it, you were a massive loser. I remember those two guys you used to meet at the music shop though. One was the younger brother of the manager, you both liked The Cure right? And the other was some skate kid who went to the other school, everyone thought he was going to shoot up that school. I think we figured out he was just an utter geek at heart though, didn’t we?” Mary got up to put the puppy away while she reminisced. 

“I liked to write so he conned me into learning DnD second edition and running games. I remember.” He cringed at the memory of the dense, painfully complex system then continued. “But no, if anything those friends made me take longer to figure out that part of myself.” 

“How’s that work,” asked Mary

“Our commonality was comforting, easier not to focus on the differences when we had so much in common. It helped that angst was a staple of our aesthetic back then, you don’t think about why mere existence is so. . .” He paused, searching for a less depressing word “difficult when part of your social philosophy is that it must be.” 

. 

Mary took a long swig of her drink. “I guess it's like how I used to flirt with every guy I met. It's less disappointing when they turn out to be creeps that way.” 

Damien nodded in agreement and went back to the computer. He typed quickly and the control panel was open so anyone would assume he was doing something complicated but Mary had seen him google the script he was running moments earlier. 

“So while we’re in this weird sharey mood. When did you realize?” Mary asked

“A dozen little moments, and a lot more in hindsight. But if you want some big moment . . .” He trailed off for a second

“Doesn’t need to be big Dames.” Mary assured. 

“Remember when I had to go to court with Lucien's glorified sperm donor.” Damiens brow creased, he looked away as he recalled the memory. 

“I remember keying the bastard's car in the parking lot,” Mary said with venom in her voice. 

A small laugh bubbled in Damiens's chest “He still thinks I did that.”

“Anyway, I was dragged over the proverbial coals in court. Stood in court in a suit that didn’t fit, looking far too awkward for a man of 26 and told that I was choosing ‘my own perversions’ over my child. Easily the worst day of my life.” The pain from that memory still flashed across his face as he told it. But only for a moment.

  
  


He shook his head and continued “But once it was over, there was this clarity. There was nothing I would have done differently. And I realized at that moment that even the worst moments I would have going forward were better than continuing to lie to myself.” 

“I never thought of it like that,” Mary said softly. 

Damien closed up what he was working on and turned off the computer. “Still worried about your kids?” 

“Honestly, Yeah.” Mary chugged the last of her flask then got up to help close up the shelter. 

“You shouldn’t be. Some of them will likely find comfort in the clear roles Joseph likes. And if some of them don’t. . .They have a mother who’s managed to love every social reject she's ever met. Honestly, I think they’ll be fine.” Damien said with genuine reverence. 

“You’re too sweet for your own good Dames, Drive me home, I’ll buy us a late dinner?” Mary finished packing things away and headed towards the door. 

“Of course.” 


End file.
